The present invention relates to an air compressor.
Air compressors are known which basically comprise a reservoir intended to contain compressed air, a pump unit for producing compressed air to be fed to the reservoir, and an electric motor for driving the pump unit by means of a transmission belt. The transmission belt serves to transmit driving torque from a driving pulley torsionally coupled to a shaft of the electric motor to a driven pulley torsionally coupled to a drive shaft of the pump unit, the shafts of the electric motor and of the pump unit being oriented parallel to each other. The driven pulley is typically shaped as a fan, in that the spokes of the pulley connecting the hub of the pulley, which is mounted on the drive shaft of the pump unit, to the ring of the pulley, around which the transmission belt is wound, are shaped as fan blades. The driven pulley thus performs not only the function of transmitting torque to the drive shaft of the pump unit, but also the function of cooling the pump unit itself. Such known compressors further comprise a belt guard which encloses the transmission belt, as well as the driving and driven pulleys, so as to avoid the risk that the user or any other person inadvertently touches these components of the compressor. The belt guard may be made of metal wire to form a grid-like structure or of plastic material to form a suitably shaped cover having a number of slits through which air is drawn from outside by the spokes of the driven pulley made as fan blades. The pulley/fan has a quite reduced capacity of cooling the pump unit. There is therefore the problem, in the known compressors of the above-described type, to avoid excessive heating of the pump unit.